Solitary
by thisiseveryshadeofwrong
Summary: "Those next six months? You don't want to KNOW about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop. Will be uploading as I write the chapters, so you can expect updates once every few days. First chapter is just the prologue. R&R!
1. Prologue

**Summary:** "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I just play with the characters.

**Rating:** T

The walk to the SHU was long, and surprisingly painful. This time Charlie knew that he wasn't going to get out in a matter of weeks or months. This time his stay was indefinite, and there was nothing he could do about it but sit and wait it out. They took apart his cell in the general population, and then dragged him out with it – something to do with his frequent causing of fights, especially the most recent one which had taken place not a day previously. They read out their asinine reasons for putting him into the SHU, which were the same for most of the inmates going in who weren't involved with gangs.

"_Causing a riot, reckless endangerment of inmate health, destruction of prison property…" The Warden read the list out, and then looked at Charlie. "You're not getting out of there for a long time, cop."_

They were walking through the blank, white walls of the SHU now, every step taking Charlie closer to his endless torment of total isolation. Before his time in prison, Charlie thought that Secure Housing was a good idea, a good method of dealing with troublesome inmates. Now? Now he thought it was Hell. Every day was the same, never ending torment as the last, and it never got any better. There was nothing to do, no way to occupy his mind. There was nothing at all.

They brought him through the processing room, outfitting him with a new set of clothes after pulling him out of the shower. Cuffing him back up (at the ankles and wrists) they walked him through the pod towards his new home for the unforeseeable future. This was it.

"Inmate, get inside the cell." The guard said as he undid the cuffs on Charlie's ankles.

Charlie complied, walking in before standing with his hands through the slot in the door, preparing for them to then remove the handcuffs. As they did it, he felt the last meagre remnant of hope leave his body. This was certain, this was sure. This was for real. After they removed the cuffs, they rechecked the locks and moved away. Charlie turned around, examining his cell. The small box contained only a bed built into the wall, and a steel toilet. The bed was a flimsy green plastic mattress with no pillow, and not large enough for him to lie straight on. The fluorescent lights flickered, constantly dimming, and he had no control over their settings. The hardest part was about to begin.


	2. Chapter 1: PART I

**Summary:** "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I just play with the characters.

**Rating:** T

**A/N: **This is chapter one, and will sum up the first three months of his stay in the SHU.

The first six months were difficult. No, they were nearly impossible. He did push ups every day, following his meagre meals. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon, once at night. Sleep never came easily, as the sounds from the surrounding cells always managed to make their way through the walls. Sometimes the other inmates would scream, other times they would yell obscenities at the guards, but Charlie never participated, he would just do more push ups. His first week in solitary passed uneventfully: his meals would come on time, and he would return them on time. He never took anything off the tray that he wasn't supposed to – the meal came with a soft plastic spoon that couldn't be moulded into a weapon (but obviously prison guards had forgotten how cunning the inmates were – they made weapons out of anything), and had to be returned with the lunch tray. By the third day, he was able to keep track of the time based upon the meals he was being served, and he never stopped doing push ups.

His chest still hurt from the latest injury inflicted upon it during the riot, where a rough inmate had most likely hit him hard enough to break ribs. They never gave him anything medical in solitary; it was yet another way for the prison guards to show him that as a convicted dirty cop he was worth nothing in prison. He was less than nothing to them and the other inmates - less than the perverts and the rapists and even the child molesters. Every time he breathed in, sharp pain over his ribs accompanied the oxygen that was flowing into his lungs. He sat on the ground hugging his chest before standing up and looking through the tiny gap between the door and its frame to see if anyone was walking past. All he wanted was a glimpse that there was still humanity in the building, and it wasn't just the prisoners in the pods alone. Seeing no one, he walked back towards his bed. His chest still hurt, but he knelt down and started doing push ups again, because the pain distracted him from thinking about what he didn't want to think about.

_How long will it be before I start talking to myself as well? How long before I start yelling out at the guards, and refusing to eat my food?_

He gritted his teeth through the pain as he pushed his body up time and time again, sweat dripped off his face and his arms grew weak over the minutes he continued to battle against his mind. The plain white walls started to feel like they were closing in on him, but he kept going.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

By a month in the SHU, Charlie was used to the screams and yells that came out of the cells next to him. He was used to the scrape of the food tray as it came in the door, and would return the tray on time as usual. He was used to the endless and sometimes deafening silences that fell when the other, rowdier inmates were quietened down, and used to the routine of coming out of the cell once per day for his exercise.

The exercise, in his opinion was the worst part of solitary. He was put into a cage where he couldn't see outside. All he could see were the other inmates who were taken out as the same time as him in their own cages, and no one ever looked to be in a good mood. Just a glimpse of the sun would have made all the difference in the world, but that was part of the deal with being in the SHU. Any freedom that you used to have in the general population was removed, and a person was literally treated like an animal. The guards looked at him with distain and thinly veiled hatred, knowing that he was a nuisance (though not always through his own actions), and not even trying to hide their feelings from him. They constantly jostled him on the walk to the exercise yard, and he knew from past experience there was a minute long window of a lack of video recording where the guards often took advantage of the inmates and would teach them a lesson for past infractions. Charlie knew it was just a matter of time until they decided it was his turn for yet another beating.

This walk to the yard had been particularly uneventful, with even the inmates in the cells next to his being suspiciously quiet. An eerie feeling settled over Charlie, and he knew that when even the inmates went quiet he was usually in for some kind of rough time. No one in the prison was there to look out for him, not just because he was a cop, and not just because he was a dirty cop. They all hated him because he was a dirty cop that had butchered an entire family in cold blood. Shuffling along the plastic floor with guards on either side of him, Charlie felt his defences start to rise, but he knew there was nothing he would be able to do. He was double shackled – once at the wrists, and once at the ankles. Whatever they were going to do to him, he was just going to have to take it. They rounded the corner and suddenly Charlie felt himself get pulled to the side, into a narrow corridor that led nowhere.

"Put him on the ground," the voice of the guard closest to him said, and Charlie was pushed down so that he was resting on his knees.

"Do you know why you're here, cop?" the guard said as he laid his nightstick on Charlie's shoulder, putting an extra bit of pressure on in order to frighten him.

"Yes sir."

"Yes sir, he says. Yes, _sir,_" the guard who was doing all the talking gestured at the second guard with a curt nod.

The second guard stood behind Charlie and held him down. "We don't like insolence in this place," he said before the guard in front pulled his arm back and plunged it into Charlie's stomach. As the blow landed, Charlie felt his mending ribs crack again under the pressure, and he yelled out in pain.

"We don't like cops in this place. Especially not filthy murdering cops."

Another punch to his stomach and Charlie wasn't kneeling anymore, he was being held up by the guard behind him.

"We don't like _you_ in this place."

Charlie felt himself get pushed to the ground and held there so the guards could continue their tirade. The first guard crouched down in front of him before opening his mouth to speak.

"We've all got bets on you, you know that? How long will Charlie Crews last in prison? Well, this time it's how long will Charlie Crews last in our Unit, and trust me, when we want someone broken, we break them."

As he said this, he grabbed Charlie and started pulling him up, before slamming his head back down onto the ground. Charlie yelled as blood began running from his nose, and slumped forward as he was pulled up.

"Get him back to his cell."

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

Two months in and he still thought exercise was the worst part of the day. What he thought was only a one minute window the guards could abuse had turned into a 'however long we feel like torturing Crews' long window. The reason? Not even people on the outside cared how he was treated in the SHU. No one would care if they saw the video footage of him getting his ribs and his nose broken. No one would care if they saw the footage of him being held down and beaten. No one would care if they saw footage of him being broken.

But he didn't break.

As soon as he could, he was doing push ups again during all times of the day. He would do sets of one hundred, rest and then do it again because there was nothing else to do. He knew if he just sat and stared at the walls he would start talking to himself, like his friendly cellmate next door who was on the shortlist for a quick trip to the psychiatric unit in the near future. He knew that if he say and waited for the time to go by he would quickly lose his mind. Already he could feel the darkness creeping in through the gaps in his fluorescent prison. How ironic that the prison, his cell was constantly alight and it was the outside world that brought the darkness.

It was the morning before he was due to start his next month straight in solitary, and even though this was not the longest he had been in the unit for, it was definitely starting to feel that way. Getting out of the cell for exercise and showers was becoming a chore, even with his constant push ups to take his mind away from its endless cycle of thoughts. Tomorrow would mark three months straight of his indefinite sentence, and the longest period of time he had stayed consecutively out of the prison hospital.

"Crews! Get to the door!"

Charlie jumped off the ground, and stuck his hands through the port in the door. Today was the first shower day of the week, and he felt he needed it with the sweat and the dried blood on his body from the guards' latest attack on him. They pulled the door open and he walked out, standing against the wall so that they could cuff his ankles together before starting the walk towards the shower block. If there was one thing Charlie could say that he tolerated about the SHU it was the fact that the showers were also solitary, meaning that he didn't have to worry about all the other prisoners dealing out their personal vendetta against every police force that had ever existed.

"Stand still." The guard on his right stated, and Charlie complied. He was to enter alone, undress, shower, redress in fresh clothing and be brought back to his cell in ten minutes. No more. They undid the cuffs on his ankles and he stepped through the door.

"Face front." The guard said, and Charlie put his hands through the port in the door, waiting for his handcuffs to be removed so that he could walk to the shower. It never happened. Instead, there was a guard waiting inside the undressing room who brought his nightstick down over Charlie's head and shoulders before swinging it up underneath his right arm. As the baton connected with his arm, which had its wrist through the door, a resounding crack was heard and Charlie cried out with pain, leaning against the door.

"Please, don't. Please, I'll do anything at all. Please stop," he gasped as his arms hung from the hole in the door, held in place by the guard on the other side who taunted him by pulling on his now broken arm.

"What can you possibly do for us, Crews?"

Another tug on his broken arm elicited a groan of pain, and a hit with the baton on his ribs, which were again broken by the blow. Charlie yelled out, before tears of pain came unbidden to his eyes.

_Don't let them see you crying Charlie._ He said to himself. "I don't know, I don't know. I can't do anything, just please don't hit me again!"

"You can't ask us to do anything, killer."

The next ten minutes Charlie endured he would remember for the rest of his life. The guard hit him over and over, taunting him with his low status in the prison, and the lack of medical attention he would receive in the prison, because this sort of thing just didn't happen in the SHU. His arms were still being held through the cuff port in the door, and his right one was in agony, as was his chest. He had now had his broken ribs for over two and a half months, having them rebroken on a regular basis by the guards. They knew his weaknesses and were loath to not exploit them. As the ten minute mark approached, the guard took Charlie by the throat and squeezed hard.

"You don't deserve to be alive, you murdering piece of shit," the guard said, and knocked on the door. "Let him out!"

The door opened, and Charlie was pulled to his feet. Just as he reached his full height, the guard got one more punch in to his ribs, and Charlie felt himself falling into blackness.

**TWENTYFOURHOURSLATER**

"Four broken ribs, broken arm, concussion, sprained wrist, broken nose and ruptured spleen…"

Charlie woke up to blinding white walls, a soft bed and blankets, and a warm covering of pain medication.

"How did this happen in the Secure Housing Unit?"

There was a doctor and two guards standing at the foot of his bed, the guards looking angry and the doctor looking extremely concerned. Even though Charlie was at the bottom of the pile in prison, doctors had sworn oaths to heal, and no matter how much he might dislike him, he had to help.

"We're working that out right at this moment," the guard on the right said. That was the one who had held him through the doors. Charlie knew that the guards would not get in any trouble for their actions over the past months, because the higher-ups didn't care. His condition would not get any further than the four walls of the room he currently resided in. Through his clouded thinking he managed to register that it had been three months since he moved to solitary, and he still managed to end up in the hospital. The blackness started creeping back into his vision and Charlie let it envelope himself, falling into a heavy, medicated sleep.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

It took two weeks for Charlie to be let out of the prison hospital and allowed back into his room in the SHU and he was now in his third month of solitary. His stomach was heavily bandaged still, and his arm in a sling over a soft prison issue case. They chained him back up, and led him into his cell slowly. He knew in his heart that his visit to the hospital had done nothing, as any healing that had happened in there would be undone in a matter of days. The bandages on his ribs would remain for the foreseeable future, and he would have to deal with it. As he was let back into his cell, the guard pushed him into the wall.

"One word, and it gets worse," he said, holding his baton against Charlie's throat. "One word."

"I know."

Charlie was let into the cell and the handcuffs removed. He was back. He was back to his own private paradise (or Hell, depending on how one saw it). Everything in the room was exactly the same, except for a book lying on the floor. He walked over to it and picked it up, reading the cover: 'The Path to Zen.' Charlie laughed and tossed it aside, not even bothering to open it. He didn't need Zen in his life, he needed his life back, but that wasn't going to happen any more than he was going to get out of solitary unharmed. Looking at his arm, he thought more about doing push ups, knowing that it would be difficult. He settled for sit ups and leg raises instead while his arm mended in order to take his mind off things, and no more than 5 minutes back in his cell he began his regime again.

As the day passed, his ribs became more and more painful, and he knew that while he had been prescribed medication, there was no way he was actually going to receive it. The guards had a nasty habit of making him as uncomfortable as possible and that would most likely include his medication not being a part of his meal. Sure enough, when the tray slid through the door, there was no medication included in the set. Glumly, Charlie sat down, ate his meal and set the tray back at the door. It was stupid to even have hoped that he would get some relief. For the first time, he didn't do his sit ups after his meal and instead sat and stared at the wall. The jeers from his neighbouring prisoners were loud and intruding after his stay in the hospital and he longed for the quiet atmosphere that he had experienced there.

The only way he would get back though, was to have another experience such like the one he just had, and there was no way he wanted to live through that again even though he had not much choice in the matter. The day passed by, and he was taken out of his cell for exercise later in the day. For the first time in a month, he was allowed to and from the yard unmolested, and took solace in that fact as he went to sleep. Maybe the guards did learn something after all.


	3. Chapter 2: PART I

**Summary:** "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I just play with the characters.

**Rating:** T

**A/N: **This is chapter two, and will cover the next two months of Charlie's stay in solitary (months four to five).

After four months in solitary Charlie was starting to feel nervous and on edge. He wasn't taking solace in the strict regime anymore, and progressively fell into a depression. It wasn't work getting off the bed for the meal three times a day, although he still managed to do a couple of push ups, just for the sake of it. The Zen book had vanished from his cell sometime during one of his exercise hours, and he never thought twice about it again. Nor did he worry about what the guards would do to him every couple of times he would leave his cell either for a shower or a trip to the yard. It just wasn't worth it anymore, and what would happen was going to happen whether he liked it or not. In the weeks following his release from the prison hospital, Charlie had hoped that the guards had learnt their lesson after the doctor had been particularly interested as to how an inmate of the Secure Housing Unit had received such bad injuries. They had apparently not, and did not relent in their shameless abuse.

The most recent attack had been when Charlie hadn't returned his plastic tray after he finished eating. Instead, he had just left it on the floor beside his poured concrete bed. Not a minute after the guard came past to collect his tray and found it missing a full team comprising of 8 guards came running towards his cell in full combat gear. It was to be Charlie's first cell extraction in the SHU.

"INMATE! You have not returned your food tray. Remove yourself from the mattress and stand at the door!"

Charlie didn't comply, he just remained laying on the bed with his eyes closed. He didn't want to get up. There was no point in getting up and responding to the guards, because he would receive a brutal beating whether or not he did the right thing.

"CREWS!" The lead guard barked through the cell door, hoping to get the attention of the prisoner. They had to follow protocol in this situation, even if it was for a prisoner that they loathed.

"Sir, he's not answering, we're going to have to go in there."

At these words, the guard at the front opened a port in the door separate to the one used to handcuff the inmates, and lifted his pellet gun through the hole. He aimed at Charlie, and fired. Charlie felt the impact of the pellet hit the side of his chest and gasped, sitting up where he had been previously lying. Five seconds later a taser came through the door and he felt the electricity course through his body, causing him to fall to the floor and begin convulsing. The guards opened the cell, came in through the door and began to try and subdue him.

After Charlie had stopped writing in pain from the taser gun, the guards had beaten him with their batons before fully restraining him, dragging him out of his cell and leaving him in the corridor. They retrieved the tray from the cell and thoroughly searched the inside of it including the toilet and the mattress before the guard in charge came back outside to speak with him.

"You know what you did wrong, don't you Crews?" he said, kneeling down so that he was level with Charlie's face. "We don't like having to do this to inmates… But you did the wrong thing, and so I guess you're going to have to deal with the consequences of your actions."

Before the guard stood up, he beckoned for three others to hold Charlie down as he undid the cuffs on his wrists and ankles, before hog-tying him with his hands and feet bound together behind his back in the corridor.

"This is just standard procedure, you know… For ex-cop inmates who think they don't have to follow the rules here," the guard said as he stood up and walked away.

Charlie was left lying in the corridor, his arms tied painfully behind his back together with his legs for hours until he was allowed back into his cell. When he returned, he just sat in the corner on top of his bed and began to rock backwards and forwards.

"I didn't do it…"

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

The six by eight foot cell that Charlie spent his days in had started to feel claustrophobic, tight and unbearable. Gone were the days where he could easily walk into the cafeteria, and gone were the days where he was able to talk to the one or two inmates that he could possibly call friends. Not a week previously, Charlie had received a message from the Warden of the prison, stating that he was to be kept in permanent twenty-three hour a day lockdown in the SHU for his own safety. When he heard that, Charlie lost all hope that his stay would be only a matter of a few more months, and that he would be allowed human contact again. Slowly, over a matter of weeks he began to deteriorate, and by the fifth month he was no longer motivated to do anything than a couple of push ups a day.

Slowly, his energy had been drained from him. His desire not to give in to the guards want to break him was melting away, and he wanted nothing more than to be left alone all day in his cell. There wasn't as much noise around him as there used to be, or maybe he just didn't notice it anymore. The days began to blend into each other and he lost track of time. Charlie had, in the other times he had been kept in the SHU developed a good sense of how to keep count of hours and days in the cells. Now though? Now he was lost in the endless mix of meals, trips to the exercise yard (which he generally ignored now) and shower visits (which he also ignored on a consistent basis). The guards were getting very frustrated with the lack of opportunity they now had to make his life as painful as possibly physically, but they made up with it by taunting and degrading him further.

"_Hey convict. Convict! Yeah you, the killer cop!" a guard said as he stopped to look into Charlie's cell. This was a new guard, and he was eager to set eyes upon one of Pelican Bay's most infamous prisoners. "How's life like in your new resort? Hope it's not too good, because it's more than you deserve, you piece of shit!"_

_Charlie didn't reply, but his gaze came to rest upon where the voice was coming from._

"_I didn't do it."_

"_Ha, yeah, sure you didn't. No one in here is guilty, right?" the guard said, and with that, he hit the door with his baton before moving onto another cell._

_Charlie looked down at the floor._

"_I didn't do it…"_

The guards never held anything back on him, not words nor violence, and after five months of endless solitary confinement and verbal and physical abuse, Charlie was starting to reach his limit. The thought of eventually getting out after five or so years never even crossed his mind anymore, not to mention the thought of even surviving that long.

_You have to keep doing push ups Charlie, or else you'll end up like the guys in the other cells, the ones doped up on medication while they sit in their own shit…_

Charlie knew that there was a special place reserved for prisoners of the SHU that went insane beyond the relatively normal talking to the walls and seeing visions. It was sadistically funny that these things, these major mental illnesses were considered 'normal' in the domain of the Secure Housing Unit, and to get treatment for any kind of psychological condition a person had to be on the brink of complete and utter insanity. The cellmate next to him had just been transferred out – not back to the general population but to the psych ward in the SHU, and Charlie didn't think he would be seeing him again anytime soon.

Charlie just wished he wasn't going to join him in the future, and so he kept doing push ups.


	4. Chapter 3: PART I

**Summary:** "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I just play with the characters.

**Rating:** T

**A/N: **This is chapter three, and will cover the sixth month of Charlie's stay in solitary. This chapter will contain a nod to **igottagetbacktohogwarts**' fic, _I'll Be Your Safety_, so make sure you check that out if you haven't already!

Also, sorry for the delay. I was interstate and without internet for about a week, then when I got back I had to jump straight into university… So I've been stressing out a bit with that.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

Charlie's sixth month in solitary was the breaking point for him. It was the longest he had ever been locked up in a tiny SHU cell for, and even though he had managed three months in the past, every following month felt like a year. Time didn't make sense anymore – meals just seemed random and the guards had long since given up asking him to come out of the cell for exercise. Instead, they routinely dragged him out for showers (and the obvious torment that he would endure on the way there and back). Showers it seemed were the only slightly mandatory feature of the Secure Housing Unit – inmates weren't even forced to eat, because the guards knew some of them wouldn't. In the time Charlie had been in his cell, there had already been two hunger strikes by the prisoners in his near vicinity. The guards paid no mind though, and simply continued to put the food trays in the cells, and take them out after the period of time they were to be eaten in had elapsed. Charlie picked at his food, only eating small portions of each meal. It was more than he could stomach now, and he could tell that he had lost weight just from being in the cell and this weight loss had accelerated with his discontinuation of daily exercise. The air in the cell, although he knew was no different to how it was when his first days began in the cell, was feeling muggy and stale. The walls felt like they were constantly closing in around him, and every once in a while, out of the corner of his eye he would think he saw someone's face. Sometimes it was Bobby, and other times it was Jen.

They were never really there though, and he always ignored them.

Charlie had stopped doing push ups every day by the second week of the sixth month. He could hardly pull himself out of bed anymore, not to mention doing a similar motion repetitively. When the tray would slide in, he would count up to ten, and then prise himself from the bed and stagger over to the food before sliding down the wall next to it. Every motion caused an ache through his body that wasn't connected to the regular beatings he endured. After struggling through half the piece of stale bread provided on the tray, Charlie sideways on the ground and studied the wall. In almost six months, he could almost say that he had looked at every single millimetre of wall in his cell, plus the door. In fact, he'd probably done it multiple times, maybe once systematically. There was just nothing else to do anymore but sit and look blankly at whatever was in the room.

During the last week of the sixth month, Charlie was due for a shower. He'd gone 2 weeks before that and the guards had decided that they both had to clean him up, and that he deserved a beating. They pulled him out of his cell in the usual way.

"Convict, stand at the door."

Charlie stood and walked towards the cell door and awaited his instructions.

"Hands through the port," the guard said through the door.

He put his hands through the port and they fastened them. Extra tight. They always put them on so tightly that it hurt him to even slightly move his wrists in any direction including a rotation of any kind.

"Stand back, then when I open the door walk out slowly and face the wall."

Charlie complied, facing the wall so they could fasten his ankle restraints. They then looped his wrist and ankles together with another chain, before another guard came to help escort him down the hall. He walked slowly and just wanted to be back in his cell again. He knew if he moved quickly though, the guards would see it as an aggressive act. They had done that to him before, and it had ended with yet another trip to the prison hospital.

When they rounded the corner to the showers, Charlie caught sight of a group of guards standing by the door to the outside area. Instead of going to the showers, his escorts continued out towards the door.

_Am I being let out? Is this finally over?_

Charlie felt a small amount of hope come back to him, and it gave him a small amount of strength. Maybe he wasn't going to be confined in his cell for the rest of his life. _His _cell. The guards opened the door as he approached, grinning at him. They even looked friendly. As he was walked outside, Charlie caught sight of another guard, a tall Latino, approaching from the general population. Charlie felt his heart rise in his chest. He was getting out.

Before he could move any further though, a baton swung down and hit him on the back. He fell to the ground, unable to catch himself because of his shackled hands. The guards dragged him around the corner to a small area that couldn't be seen from anywhere else in the near vicinity. He was alone yet again. As the Latino guard came up, Charlie realised that he was holding a bag and was wearing gloves.

_No. Please no._

He had heard about this happening to ex cops in prison. He had heard all the stories when he was outside, but yet for some reason had forgotten. When he was dropped back to the ground, the guards began to beat him down with their batons before ripping his shirt off and throwing it away. They grabbed a bucket of water that was sitting nearby and threw it over Charlie, who was bleeding on the ground, broken. They turned him onto his stomach and poured more water onto his back before drying it off briefly.

The Latino guard walked up, opening his bag and pulling out a makeshift tattoo machine.

"Welcome to the SHU, _Jura_," he said, grinning from ear-to-ear. "I hope you like the rest of your stay."

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

After his ordeal, Charlie was pulled back off the ground and washed down again with the remainder of the water that was left in the bucket. The guards started walking back towards the SHU entrance, but Charlie stumbled along the way and fell back, only to be grabbed by his arms and held upright.

"No falling, cop. You walk back."

"I can't. I can't"

"Walk!"

Charlie tried to take a step, but the pain from his ribs and legs caused him to stumble again.

"Stand UP!" The guard on his right said, pulling his arm up sharply.

A gasp of pain left Charlie's mouth, but he silenced it as quickly as possible.

"I can't…"

"Fuck it, let's just drag him back. We can say he tried to escape. That'll earn him some time in the hole if it happens anyway," the guard on his left muttered as he slipped his arm under Charlie's. They began dragging him back to his cell, his limp body gathering more dirt as they trudged back to the entrance.

Once they reached the entrance, the guards walked into the shower with Charlie, threw him onto the ground and turned the water on. One of them grabbed a fresh jumpsuit and carried it back to his cell before coming back to help the other. They pulled Charlie back up and brought him to the only mirror in the shower room.

"Hey, _Jura_. You like your new tattoo?"

Charlie raised his head briefly to look at the new addition of marks collecting on his body, although this was the first in permanent ink. The clumsily drawn face of a pig stared back at him from his left shoulder blade, and his head dropped back down. He didn't reply.

The guard on his right slapped him across the face.

"I SAID, do you like your new tattoo?"

"Yes, sir," Charlie whispered, looking down at the sink while still being supported by the guards on either side of him.

"Let's get him back to his cell."

On his return to the cell, the guards undid his cuffs before pushing him through the door. Charlie immediately fell to the ground and started to cry. They had finally broken him. All his effort, and all his attempts to stay stoic through everything that had happened had been for nothing. The guards finally knew how to break Charlie Crews.

The next morning, Charlie saw Jen out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at her. She stood at the door to his cell. Sitting up, Charlie gestured to her to come and sit next to him.

"Hey Jen, I've missed you."

"…"

"I know, it's been a long time. How are you doing?"

"…"

"That's good. I've been okay. I get food here every day and I don't have to fight for it anymore."

"…"

"I can't wait to get out and see you again. Are you gonna wait for me?"

"…"

"Jen?"

"…"

"Jen don't go. Please don't go."

"…"

End. Part I

**A/N: Please tell me if you would rather the story be in one, two, three or six month parts. I will do whichever suits the readers. **

**Thanks for all the views so far, and it would be great if you could press that review button and tell me what you think of the story. This is easily the most in depth story I have ever written. Much love to you all!**


	5. Chapter 1: PART II

**Summary:** "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I just play with the characters.

**Rating:** T

**A/N: **This is chapter four, and part one of the next 6 months of Charlie's confinement.

Again sorry for the delay, I am getting hammered already at university. I will try my best to update once a week (and more if I get it done).

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

In Charlie's seventh month of confinement, he stopped doing push ups, and even stopped leaving his bed during the day. Instead, he sat and talked to himself, and the walls. He talked to anyone who would listen, anyone at all. Sometimes he saw people from his time on the force, and they spoke to him nicely. They talked about how much they missed him, and how he didn't deserve to be in prison. Sometimes he saw his parents, and even his dad seemed to believe that his only son didn't belong in a locked up room. His mother always cried when her hallucinatory form saw Charlie, or at least Charlie imagined that she did.

"I miss you, mom. I wish you could come see me more often."

"…"

"Dad doesn't want you to? But he still lets you come though… I wish he would come more as well. I don't like it in here, I don't like the guards."

"…"

"I guess it's hard to explain what it feels like, mom."

"…"

"Mom, don't cry. I'm okay. I'm doing fine, even though I don't like it."

"…"

"Please don't cry, mom."

"CONVICT, who are you talking to?" a loud voice broke through Charlie's imaginary conversation, accompanied with a loud metallic clang as his cell door was hit with a baton. Charlie was jolted back to the present, and his vision of his mother faded as his attention went towards the cell door.

"No one, sir."

"That's right con, you have no one. No one," the guard said, leaning down so that he could see through a port in the door to make eye contact with Charlie. "The Warden wants to see you."

Hearing this, Charlie's heart sank. There were only bad reasons that the warden would want to see an inmate, and it was never something to look forward to. The usual process of his shackling began after he stood from his bed and moved towards the cell. When he stood against the wall outside his cell, the guard turned him to face front.

"Let's go."

The walk to the Warden's office was long and arduous with only the small steps that the chains around Charlie's ankles, wrists and waist allowed. The guards made no effort to even slightly assist him, especially given the state he had deteriorated to over just one short month of barely eating. No longer was he the lean, sinewy young man that had often held his own in the general population. Now, his prison garb hung off his skinny frame. The lack of exercise he had taken part in over 6 months had begun to take its toll, and his skin had taken on a pale, sickly sheen.

As Charlie and his guards approached the Warden's office, Charlie felt himself grow more apathetic towards what the outcome of this short journey would be. It wouldn't be good news, and he didn't care about bad news anymore. No bad news could change the life that he was presently living – nothing worst could happen than being locked away for 23 hours a day. Charlie waited outside the door of the office while everyone inside got organised. When the door opened and he was let through, Charlie noticed his wife's lawyer standing behind the Warden's desk with a folder of papers. A feeling of quiet despair settled through his body, and Charlie just looked to the ground.

"Your wife is filing for divorce, Mr. Crews," the lawyer said, setting the papers down on the Warden's desk. "You're to fill them out, sign, and allow her what she wants."

"…Okay…"

Charlie sat down behind the desk and tried to pull his wrists up to sign the pages.

"…I can't get my hands up far enough…"

The guard behind him snorted, but walked up to loosen the chains connecting his wrists to his ankles. Charlie pulled his hands up, looked briefly through the papers and signed without a second thought. Afterwards, he slumped down in the chair and put his head in his hands.

"Tell her I understand, please," Charlie said to the lawyer. "I don't blame her."

The lawyer nodded, before leaving the room. The Warden stood from his chair behind the desk and looked hard at Charlie.

"Crews, you've caused a lot of trouble in the General Population. Not always from your own doing, but for the safety of the other inmates, and yourself you will be detained in the SHU indefinitely."

Charlie's head didn't move upwards, nor acknowledge what had been said.

"Take him back."

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

Jennifer stopped appearing as often in his hallucinations after Charlie was served the divorce papers. Now it revolved mostly around his mother, father, and people he served on the force with. Try as he might, he talked to them every day. The promises he always made when he went to bed the nights before - to try and stay sane and not talk to himself – were always broken as soon as he woke up the next day. The isolation was slowly causing him more pain than any shank, and any stay in the infirmary had ever done. Charlie tried to keep eating, he tried to walk around his cell and he tried to shower, but he only managed these things on an irregular basis. It had been over two weeks since he last went out to the exercise yard, and a week since his last shower. At most, he ate once a day and didn't move the other two meals from where they sat in the cell before they were taken out again. The guards had even noticed his failing health, and had (only because they were obliged to) alerted the SHU hospital that Charlie could be in for a brief stay if he let himself go even further.

Charlie sat in his cell talking to his father, as the day went past.

"I don't understand why you won't let her see me, dad. You know I'm innocent."

"…"

"I know I'm innocent…I know I didn't do it."

"…"

"Did I?"


	6. Chapter 2: PART II

Summary: "Those next six months? You don't want to know about what happened then…" A look at explaining what did happen, a year after Charlie's first substantial solitary confinement began. Starts at the first six months and ends with his return to Gen. Pop.

Disclaimer: Not mine. I just play with the characters.

Rating: T

A/N: This is chapter four, and part one of the next 6 months of Charlie's confinement.

Sorry about the long delay. I'm deferring university for the time being so will be able to write more, I hope.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

8 months into his stay in solitary and one month after hearing he would be stuck there forever, Charlie didn't know what to do. He no longer tried to keep fit or not talk to himself and when he could get a full night sleep without waking in a cold sweat, he never felt refreshed. Nothing seemed to matter anymore now that Jennifer was gone forever – she wouldn't write, she wouldn't visit and she wouldn't call.

But she didn't do any of those things in the first place anyway, so why was Charlie worried?

" She's gone for good. She's gone for good. She's gone for good…" Charlie sat on his bed, rocking backwards and forwards. "She's never going to come and visit. No one is going to come and visit."

The couple of years that Charlie had spent in the general population before being moved to the solitary unit yielded only several visitors: one had been his father, letting him know how little he thought of him and how his mother was never going to come visit because Charlie had broken her heart, and the others had all been reporters.

Charlie gave one interview before he vowed never to do it again, because although the reporter had been genuine, the paper had attempted to paint him like a sociopath with their headlines. The reporter was fired soon after, for apparently being too nice to Charlie.

To the newspapers and the people, he was a cold-blooded killer who never admitted what he had done wrong.

LIFELIFELIFELIFELIFE

**TIME MAGAZINE: PSYCHO COP KILLER CHARLIE CREWS SPEAKS FROM PRISON: **

**Report by Michael Striker.**

_I'm sitting in the yard with Charlie Crews, the convicted murderer of a family – husband and wife, and their son – in cold blood. Charlie Crews is a tall man, but not overly well build. His thin frame is accented by the baggy prison jumpsuit he is wearing, and his face is exceptionally pale. A black eye marks his left eye, and a cut above it shows the brutality of the fighting he has to endure. His left arm is in a soft cast (because they aren't allowed to give him a hard one, he says) and held in a sling. The only thing that makes him stand out from all the other prisoners is his shock of bright red hair in a place that is largely populated by people of a minority ethnicity. The man sitting in front of me does not look like a killer at all – rather he looks like an out of place twenty going on thirty something who is way out of his depth. _

_Striker: "Charlie, can you tell me what it was like when you realised that you were going to prison?"_

_Charlie looks at me, before looking down to his feet, pulling a packet of 'Lucky Strike' cigarettes out of his jumpsuit._

_Crews: you don't mind if I smoke around you, do you?_

_Striker: not at all, I might have one myself._

_Crews: bad habit that I've started to pick up here. I never smoked before and I never thought I would… Going to prison was hard._

_Striker: coming from someone whose job previously was to put people into prison, it must have been a sharp contrast to what you thought it would be like._

_Crews: I had been to prisons in the past, when I was on duty. I've always known it's not a fun place to be, but you can't really explain it unless you've lived there – just going there doesn't do it justice. _

_Striker: you keep saying 'there,' as if we aren't 'here.' Why is that?_

_Crews doesn't answer but rather he smiles at me in a knowing sort of way._

_Crews: that's one of the things that you learn. I can't explain it._

_While we are talking, I can feel the uneasiness of Charlie Crews when we are out in the yard. _

_Striker: you seem to be a little on edge._

_Crews: I've not been overly lucky when out in the yard in the last year or so. Seems I'm quite the target here. _

_Striker: but you agreed to come out here with me._

_Crews: they won't hurt me when you're here. They'd risk a very nasty punishment – you've done nothing wrong._

_Striker: but they have no problem hurting you?_

_Crews: I'm a cop._

_Striker: you were a cop._

_Crews: to them I still am._

_I sit for a moment and digest what he says. Before I can say something else, Charlie asks me if he can get something to eat – the guards withheld his food today because of an apparent infraction. I say yes, and slowly he stands up, puts his cigarettes back into his pocket and we walk over to the canteen set up for yard visits. When we get to the canteen, Charlie stands 5 feet back – there's a line painted that he isn't allowed to walk past, because the visitors are the only ones allowed to purchase the food. I buy him a chocolate bar, a bag of chips and a bottle of water. I pass them back to him and we walk back to the table we were sitting at before._

_Striker: how many times have you been in the hospital so far?_

_Crews: I think probably around 9 months I've spent in the hospital rather than in my cell._

_Striker: and you've been here for just over a year?_

_Crews: yes._

_Charlie lists the injuries off to me as I sit there in shock – two broken arms (one is his first week, and the one he currently has), a broken leg, fractured collarbone, 5 broken ribs, ruptured spleen, a punctured lung and several broken fingers and toes. _

_He's been 'shanked' several times, but none too serious he says, as of yet._

_Striker: what to the guards do about this?_

_Crews: I'd rather not talk about that. _

_Personally, I think that's fair enough. The way that the guards have been looking at him has made me uncomfortable. We sit in silence for a few minutes as Charlie eats, slowly. When he finishes, he lights up another cigarette and puffs on it slowly._

_Crews: most people on the outside won't have any sympathy for me, even after you write this article you know._

_Striker: I know._

_Crews: then why are you writing it?_

_Striker: I don't know._

_It's the first time he's asked me a question instead of me asking him and it throws me a little bit. I don't really know why I am writing this when everyone who reads it is already convince that Charlie Crews is evil._

_Maybe I'm one of the few who doesn't._

_We talk companionably for another 15 minutes, but Charlie constantly avoids the subject of the murders. A deep sadness crosses his face when I mention the names of the family that used to be his best friends. From all accounts, there was really nothing that led up to the murder – but even when I've watched the tapes, the evidence has been overwhelming and I myself am confused as what to believe. The man sitting in front of me doesn't even seem close to a person that could commit such a horrible crime, but he sits here in a dry Californian prison wearing a prison jumpsuit, and smoking, knowing that he will never get out._

_Striker: I do have to ask…_

_Crews: am I innocent?_

_Striker: …_

_Crews: There are some days I don't know. _


End file.
